This is not my Body/Ixone Sádaba/3ra Edición del Barcelona Gallery Weekend

28 Sep 2017 > 15 Jan 2018
artist(s): Ixone Sádaba

This is not my body by the artist Ixone Sádaba is the title of the project presented by Tasneem Gallery  for the 3rd Edition of Barcelona Gallery Weekend.

Taking as a starting point the title of the series. This is not my body, we are interested in opening a tour that shows different facets of the research that the artist performs. Sádaba uses photography, installation and performance to explore the notions of depiction and perception of identity. In this proposal we were captivated to focus on one of its main references: the female body as a ruptured space, exposed to violence and fragmentation, a body that has infinite possibilities, extending beyond imposed frameworks and coercive forces.
Another line of research we want to show is her concept of photography as technology. Ixone points out that for many years the formal and documentary aspects of photography have been used to support normative knowledge, in front of which she proposes an approach to the medium as a field for deploying materialities and tools, a place to expand or contract time and space, to alarm and disagree.

We have selected works from three different series: Poetry of Disappearance, Gulala and This is not my body, all of which have formal and ideological links, and also show the plurality and dexterity with which the artist produces.

In Poetry of Disappearance, Sádaba as performer turns to her own body, to work with the idea of an image that is and is not. A self that emerges and disappears under tense and dramatic conditions. It is a body on the edge of collapse in its double condition of image and phantom, whose identity and existence do not depend on its depiction. “We perceive our bodies as the most common thing in the world, but has it occurred to us how the margins of its representation are socially limited?” says Sádaba, and in response gives us a new approach to the notion of time and transcendence made possible by the photographic medium. She uses movement, feeling and time as formal strategies that define the photographic framework, rendering the unique image and the real-documentary nature of the snapshot obsolete. Poetry of Disappearance forms part of the collection of the Guggenheim Bilbao.

The series Gulala , composed of black and white pieces show semi-abstract close-up images of traces made on the walls, ceilings and floors of some enclosed space. At first sight it seems to be a composition of textures and chiaroscuro, but the fragility of these pieces printed on newsprint contrasts with the harshness of the content. Here the body is evoked through the traces left of the marks of violence on women and children who were confined and tortured in the Amna Suraka (Red Security) prison in the town of Halabja in Iraqi Kurdistan. About the form of presentation of the works, Sádaba explains: “The Newsprint is not durable, it is not chromogenic or photographic; actually, it is the most perishable object: yesterday´s newspaper.” With this decision she refers to the short relationship, both physical and emotional, that we maintain with the press and its ever current news. Gulala is one of the series of works resulting from the artist´s residency in the Delfina Foundation, London.

This is not my body is the latest production of the artist, where once again returns to the body as protagonist.
For Ixone to expose her own body implies a fundamental political attitude, it is the most genuine way of expressing identity. She explains that her body is “the face and hands, but also the ass and the vagina”, it is her representation and the signs that accompany this representation. That is why in this work the materials that are normally used for framing cease to be accessories, leaving behind the image to conquer another role.

Sádaba mentions: “For years I began to consider that there was something limiting in the fact of framing an image. So I began, first, to fragment the frames and the photograph itself, to later begin to open the frame, to disintegrate it and play with the elements that usually make it up: wood, metal, glass, foam… Then very interesting relations appeared, at the sculptural level, between all of them. And it turns out that the image stopped working independently. Nor did it become an exterior covering, but an element in relation to the rest. The image suddenly lost authority”.

This solo show is an allegory that once again debates the representation-identity of the female body. This idea brings together Sádaba´s experience in working with various materials to show us the lyricism of a body that sometimes she does not recognize and at the same time inhabits.
About the artist
Ixone Sádaba 1977, Bilbao, Spain
Graduated in 2001 at the Fine Arts Basque Country, holds a MFA of the University Antonio Lebrija in Madrid (2001) and a Certificate Program at The International Centre of Photography, New York (2005).
Her work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions such as Reina Sofia Museum, Guggenheim Bilbao, MUSAC, MOCCA Contemporary Art Museum (Toronto), Museum of Contemporary Arts (New Orleans)
Awarded with the prize Generaciones 2011 for the project “La Nuit Americaine” and finalist of the Sovereing Art Foundation 2012. Others awards are:“Convergencias”, Alliance Française & Fundación Pilar Citoler (2012), Sovereign European Art Prize, Hong Kong (2011), finalist at Purificación García Prize(2003), N.Y. Festival and Gold prize, Pressbook “Pearl Harbour” 2003.
Her work is part of different collections such as the Guggenheim Bilbao, MNCARS, ARTIUM, MUSAC, Iberdrola, BBK, Madrid Community and in numerous private collections. Some International residences she has received are: International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York, Delfina Foundation Residency, Mugatxoan, Fundaçao Serralves and in Arteleku.